GUIDO KARP BLOG

A full free weekend

2011-04-23T02:37:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, welcome back. We eventually survived the longest, most successful Princess for one day tour, which lead us more or less from Nov 15 until April 16 three times through Germany, featuring an Austria and Swiss tour too. I am here for few more days in Germany, waiting for my god child Alexanders christening on May 1. The day after Nicole and I are heading off for LA, where we will spend most of the summer.

This weekend I was actually supposed to be in Zingst, host of the Horizonte Festival in late May, early June. As some of the more devoted readers may remember, I attended last year, and some friends and I thought we could contribute to the friendly atmosphere there.

As my dear colleagues Mike Larson and Greg Gorman liked the evolving vibes there, I greatly promoted the activities through my newsletter and was off for a first start there this weekend. The plan was to start with a children's workshop. 100 Zingst and close area kids between 6 and 12 were to be coached and supplied with brand new cameras (I really begged hard to get those cameras, and Canon proved to be a generous sponsor for this. I heartfully thank everyone at Canon German for caring and helping, the kids sure appreciated this). With flights and everything booked and prepared, Zingst's responsible Peter Krüger withdrew his world and literally dropped the project. Not shy to find alternatives, we launched the entire project in my German home town Koblenz just on time with the Grand Opening of the Bundesgartenschau 2011, a city wide celebration of flowers and nature - a true feast for the eyes.

It was amazing how enthusiastic the kids responded, and eventually took some 50.000 images, filling far more than hundred 2GB memory cards. I will take all images to LA and we see to it - thanks to the major of Koblenz - to show them in a big show on April 2012 in the Haus Metternich, the same exhibition place which generously featured my Singvögel exhibition series last summer.

With regard to Zingst, it's history to me. I would not want to get involved anymore. I was both saddened and even more disappointed to learn that the heart of the festival is not about photography, but renting rooms. Mr Krüger, even though you are the older part of us, feel free to take my advice: you better stop p***ing off people who stood in line and backed you up.

So for now we take my wife's twelve year old Fabienne and our little dog Princess, and will enjoy our time in sunny Koblenz, which is, at this time of the year, not only by far the more attractive place to be, but for sure also the more convenient place to travel to than to Zingst....

Well, we're in the Rhineland, famous for our carnival here - Helau!

2011-03-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

This image was taken by Dominik Kokocinski during our Princess for one day tour in Zweibrücken, Germany few weeks ago. My long time master h&mua artist Ullrich Remus got us these wigs for our new concept "covergirl". I shot some of our muas with these wigs, then talked them into going topless, promising I would not show any indecent nudity. As I was promising this to be an easy thing, I had to show what I wanted, so consequently Ullrich and I posed for them.

Good morning everyone....

2011-03-03T21:15:00.001-08:00

The third day in a row with no Princesses to shoot. Am at home, enjoying the quietness of the morning in the kitchen. Wife and dog are still asleep, still dark outside at just after 6am. I like these mornings.

Yesterday, I've been in the studio with the kids from the photo school. Other than in the US, photography is a job which you learn from a master (like myself ;-) over three years, with one school day every week, and another every three weeks. So basically all these kids are working at some pro's studio and learning all essentials about becoming a professional photographer, which sounds kind of nice, but then there are a total of 16 slots in an area of some hundred square miles. Worse: all these people come from different photographic backgrounds, starting at a pass photo studio, some doing advertisement, and one is even scanning vintage documents since almost a year now. Eight hours a day....

So you have all these different directions, and I invited them to come to my studio, hired a few MUAs, and there were to photograph themselves, which was really nice. Then, the took the raw files home and yesterday we met again to see how far the got with the images. TWO out of sixteen brought one image :-( still, we had great fun, and being a good buddy I made sure to provide some rock star to join us. Photo courtesy of Konstantin Drieß.

Gosh it's been ages

2011-02-27T08:28:00.001-08:00

since I last posted here. Last time, we just started the Princess for one day tour with Steve Thornton. Looking back, it seems like yesterday, with few minor intermissions - like christmas, for example.

Today, we are in my studio in Koblenz, Germany and are celebrating what was meant to be the second and final day here on this tour. Who knew, that we were to extend the tour to almost 100 days, with four Koblenz sell-outs :-)

After the Contur-Tour (on which we were booked through a high end furniture conglomerate), I was off for few days with Rammstein to NYC, then christmas as home, and since Jan 5 we are on tour with this wonderful concept here.

We've made quite some friends. Julia from Munich has now attended for her 17th time. The image left shows Sandra, who's made it not even close to the 17, but still is a dear friend. The background is an image I took few years back in my old studio in Neuwied, Germany, using daylight only. We printed it on canvas, then sealed it with ten coats. The image has toured the world with us now for a while, and now found a new home at Sandra's :-)

Gosh it's been ages

2011-02-27T05:50:00.000-08:00

It's Fashion Time today.....

2010-11-16T06:32:00.000-08:00

and we are having a tremendous time checking out a new format for Princess for one day, with the incredible Steve Thornton shooting. Fabulous Vicky Perry is taking care of the stylings :-)

Professional Workshop at my German studio

2010-10-22T23:04:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, the photo workshop tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland originally scheduled for this fall has to be pushed for a year - we simply did not have the time to organize it. Before I embark on a major assignment from November 15 through April 16, I offer two one day workshops in my new German studioon Saturday 06 November (12-20 hrs) and on Sunday 07 November (11-19hrs) a one-day workshop in Koblenz my new studio in the heart of the old part of town (Münzplatz 10)

The number of participants to 18 participants (hereinafter clarity "Participants", sorry girls ;-) limited.

In the first half of the workshop, I will photograph the three models in the studiousing both studio flash equipment and available light and explain how I set my lights. In addition, I will work my way in the immediate (and attractive ;-) studio vincinity, using ambient and with artificial light (camera system flashes and Hensel Porty). I assume that an insight is required in my work - and no model-sharing. Therefore I ask to give up on taking pictures during while I am shooting. My team will - if requested- provide you with documentary photographs.

Then I will edit my material and present the main features of a professional workflow. These steps are shown with a beamer - and are also featured in the personalized working documents you will receive at the workshop. These are for your personal use only - any reproduction or distribution is not permitted.

After the break participants have the opportunity to transpose their learning with the models, stylists and assistents - using my gear - and all of this of course unter my supervision. It's written in stone: only one photographer with one model at a time, please.

The workshop fee is EUR 179 per participant (incl.19% VAT). This includes the following (* denotes: as long as supplies last):

Cold and hot drinks (non-alcoholic) during the exhibition period
fresh fruit during the entire event duration
Hot finger food (in the break)
Personalized Workshop working documents (only for their own use, no transmission to third parties)
Studio use
Leasing of studio flash units (Hensel Porty Heads & Compact)
Leasing of the tripods (Manfrotto)
Leasing of reflectors and Sun-Swatter (Sunbounce)
Leasing of the lenses (Zeiss, Canon, Sigma) *
Leasing of the camera body (Canon) *
Use of IT structure
Studio use internal high-speed wireless (32MBit)
Model-Fees
Rights to use their photos for non-commercial purposes, FSK 16
2 Hair & Make-Up Artists
2 Studio Wizard
3 Models

Participants need to provide
enough CF cards or other suitable storage medium
own laptop for image editing

Booking: www.guidokarp.com /workshops

Photokina 2010 - Interview FotoTV

2010-09-25T05:38:00.001-07:00

Photokina 2010: It's Saturday....

2010-09-25T01:33:00.000-07:00

and David Mecey, Playboy photographer for some incredible 23 years and, more importantly, a dear buddy over the past years, is on stage now. When we started this, I thought I would have to be with my colleagues for the entire shows, but then it turned out that most of the audience speaks enough English to get along.

This sure adds to the show, as I fear it would have somehow disturbed the flow by interrupting each time to bring everything into German.

Our booth (it's been a continous laugh to everyone involved calling this 10,000sqft "a booth") is packed, saw many familiar faces, featuring my ex assistant Viola, Andreas,.... it's always so nice to see them again.

Despite the fact that both wife and dog left home last night and I sure miss them, this is going to be a great day. It started with me bumping into Sting, whose tour photographer I was for three tours - and whose image is hanging here in Tim Mantoani's exhibit.

I know I showed it here a little while ago, but still I am so proud to be part of this wonderful exhibition which features some of my all time heroes like Jim Marshall or Douglas Kirkland.

Besides the show, my day is packed with some meetings, a worldwide live radio show on deutschlandfunk at 5pm and the big fotocommunity party tonight. If time permits, I will run through the images our interns André and Michael did - and put this up later today.

ProfiFOTO Get Together

2010-09-24T01:11:00.001-07:00

After Tim Mantoani's fabulous performances, Germany's professional photo mag #1 ProfiFoto and I cordially invited for Get Together. Editor-in-chief Thomas Gerwers and I initiated this in 2008. The idea was and is to connect people, so it was not supposed to be a party nor a product or whatever presentation.

And some people really got connected! We had Steve Thornton, Tim Mantoani, Peter Geller, Gerd Ludwig and some other great colleagues there - and I was very pleased to see that people did indeed grab the opportunity to show their portfolios and get valuable response and advice.

I spent quite some time with the guys who run www.fotograf.de - interesting experience. Today, Friday, is my turn. Let's rock the stage. Gotta run.

Photokina 2010

2010-09-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

So, the pieces finally came together. In all honesty, Sunday night I almost crushed. I thought we would never get things done in time. Therefore it is a must to me to thank my devoted team Daniela, Carola, Konstantin and Dominik as well as our fearless interns Michael an André - and, of course, my beloved wife Nicole for going extremes for the project and me.

By now, we have had some ten thousand people at our gigantic stage, gave out 8000 of the DVDs we filmed this summer in California. Tuesday we had Mike Larson, most likely the worlds best wedding photographer - here some images kindly provided by our intern Michael Foerster -

yesterday Steve Thornton, fashion guru from Atlanta, GA and right now, we have Tim Mantoani on stage, a brilliant commercial photographer whom I met in the run of his fantastic "Behind photographers" project - I came to be part of.

Tomorrow it will be my turn. I will see that the stage rocks, so I brought some guitars, and hopefully with our fog machines and colorful moving lights we will see some photokina visitors become rock stars and pose for us.

Saturday will be David Mecey's day, who's been with Playboy for 23 years. I am most anxious to see who comes and shows off in bikini or lingerie :-)

Sunday will be a mixed programme that I will post later today - hopefully. It's gonna be a long day, as after the show we will have a get-together that Germany's #1 pprofessional photo magazine ProfiFoto and I do together for the second time. We expect almost 400 photographers - and I am sure it's going to be fun.

New hair style.

2010-09-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

First attempt to qualify to perform in the 27th sequel to "Back to the future":

Photokina 2010 Interview - courtesy of FotoTV.de

2010-09-09T23:46:00.001-07:00

Here the revised layout of our forthcoming photokina show

2010-09-06T07:52:00.001-07:00

The area left is our VIP reception area - by invitation only. If you wish to be invited, check out my latest newsletter ;-)

Trailer for Photokina show

2010-08-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

We are really all looking forward to this show, which will be, even by my high photokina standards, biggest and best show. The trailer is only a small excerpt of a video DVD we filmed in June/ July in LA. The DVD shall be available for FREE - hours of most beautiful educational on the Photokina, so watch out for us in hall 9.1

Photokina

2010-08-11T04:09:00.000-07:00

Since the very start of 2010, we are planning this year's photokina appearance. Once again it will be a grand show. Compared to previous years, the concept has been changed. I will invite high profile colleagues - to practically show how we work, to show off our gear and explain how and why we use it, and to openly discuss the business we do. Here's a brief rundown of the plan:

Mike Larson (San Luis Obispo, California) Tuesday

one of the world’s best wedding photographers

Steve Thornton (Atlanta, Georgia/ Milan, Italy) Wednesday

World class fashion photographer

Tim Mantoani (San Diego, California) Thursday

Superior commercial photographer - his current exhibition series “Behind photographers” is one of the hottest in the world

Guido Karp (Koblenz, Germany/ Los Angeles, CA) Friday

Music Photographer, toured as an exclusive for Robbie Williams, AC/DC and numerous more. More than 1000 music CD and DVD covers.

David Mecey (Los Angeles, CA) Saturday

Lingerie and female nudes - Playboy photographer for 23 years.

Greg Gorman (Los Angeles, CA) Sunday*

Celebrity, lifestyle and male nudes

*to be confirmed.

The Concept:

The idea is to combine the audience-participation-idea that grew with the princess for one day concept with the extraordinary talents of the photographers invited. Consequently, we will invite

wedding couples to come to the show Tuesday. As before, the photographer will randomly pick people from the crowd to be photographed by the world’s #1 wedding photographer, Mike Larson, at no charge.
girls from the crowd to get styled and photographed by Steve Thornton
Tim Mantoani will pick his personal models - no matter whether male or female - to join him on stage in his composition.
Whoever brings an instrument has great chances to join Guido Karp onstage, when he turns the stage into a Rock N Roll scence
Playboy’s David Mecey will draw the shows most beautiful girls and present them in swimwear and/or fine lingerie.
And this is for the ladies, when Greg Gorman will shoot male torsos (in swimwear) live on stage in hall 6. Again, Greg's appearance still depends if he can move previous commitments

Schedule: Other than in the years before, the three daily show blocks do not only consist in the practical part. Here’s the daily run down:

10:00 Photokina opens

10:30 Show Block 1

Photographers select first models.

While in styling, photographer introduces himself, shows some

images of his work and presents the position he is in today.

11:00 Photo shoot starts. Photographer will explain the essence of his

shoot, the set up and the catches behind the shoot.

11:30 Photo shoot ends. Photographer will explain the indiviudal work

flow of the shoot, editing in Lightroom, color corrections, retouch

In Photoshop.

Photographer will sit and discuss the entire equipment used. This

is not a sales promo, nor is the presentation paid by any of the

manufacturer. Consequently, show visitors can rely on the experience the photographer shares with the audience.

12:00 Photographer will talk about the job aspect. Audience will have a chance to really get a sneak view behind the scenes and learn

how the big shots of the world get their $$$$$ jobs.

Questions and answers.

12:30 Break

13:00 Show Block 2, as above

15:00 Break

15.30 Show Block 3, as above

17:30 End. Emerging talents have the chance to present their portfolios to the photographers on CD and the photographers will discuss the images.

18:00 Show ends.

As, apart from myself, none of the photographers speak German, I will host all days. The show will be bi-langual (German/ English).

Rachel and Mike: we love you!

2010-08-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

Just few days before we left Los Angeles, we had the chance for a photo shoot with one of my all time favourite photographers, Mike Larson. He invited us to his home town, San Luis Obispo, some 200 miles north of LA.

To give us the maximum comfort and keep the session as non-business as one possibly can, his beautiful and pregnant wife Rachel joined in as an assistant, so if was just us friends strolling the beach and the mountains attached.

This is only one of 71 images received today, and I will sure post some more soon. I wish everyone of you can experience a photo shoot like this, filled with love and friendship, which you find resembled in this and all other images taken.

some sun beams from LA...

2010-07-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

Once again, it's been a while since I last blogged. I will do more, I really will. After receiving another warning from facebook for showing indecent nudity, which I sure did not, I deleted all my images on facebook. I do not know what they want from me. One day I am going to chase them legally for having all my images on their sites without my consent - I mean there are hundreds if not thousands used without my consent, even by quite a few of my so-called facebook "friends".

I am back in LA since a couple of weeks. Normally, I take it slow for the first days, but we had Dominik - my partner in MAXX (a video/ web company) and Peter from Sunbounce here and started filming a DVD for the photokina this year. This year, it's gonna be a real blast.

Unfortunately, I have a meeting coming up and need to get ready, so I will tell you more about it tomorrow.

Greets from Zingst, Germany

2010-05-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

at the Baltic sea. There is a great photo festival happening here, and I can not wait to see Gerd Ludwigs show tomorrow. Am talking a short break, few days off with my wife at the most beautiful village by the sea.

Am leaving now for the evening to enjoy dinner with Greg Gorman, who flew in from LA today, and of course, our dear friend Peter Geller of California Sunbounce.

Latest newsletter mailed off

2010-05-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

so if you did not get it but would love to have it, send an email to contact(at)guidokarp.com. Have a sunny weekend!

Flash crack wanted

2010-05-08T01:47:00.001-07:00

Looking for a "flash crack" who can syncronize my photo sessions with music to a short flash film. If you (a) very experienced with flash programming and (b) interested :-) - please send an email (please no facebook entry, thanks!) to my email contact (at) guidokarp.com.

Sending some sun beams from the Koblenz Münzplatz

2010-05-08T01:28:00.001-07:00

Good morning, who ever you are reading this. I hope things are well for you. I am sitting in the Global Coffee Lounge and enjoy my day off. I rented off my studio for the weekend to my land lord, so: no photo shoots.

Have been away for the past two days to Munich: business meetings. First a very exciting meeting with ADAC, not to be mixed with AC/DC though ;-). ADAC is the German society of motoris, and it seems as if we have some business in the future. Then, I met with the director of RIVA, who possibly want to do some books with me. So maybe I will spent some time today on a small proposal of "my version of happiness", at least as far as it comes to books. Also, I will definitly have to blast out a newsletter to my German followers. I hope they still know who I am.

Yesterday was well spent on a business venture, who wants to do an extensive exhibition series of my work. I will sure let you all know once we are getting closer on this.

Enough for today. Enjoy if not by means of weather sunny weekend, then at least sunny by heart. Love, Guido

I'm back

2010-04-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

I know, it would be quite an understatement to write I know it's been a while. And I feel guilty about it. However, there were a zillion good reasons and I save my breath by listing them all.

I am back here on my blog, and that's all what counts. There are a number of good news, though. First of all and probably most important:

I will open my new German studio this coming weekend. There will be a party on Friday 31, which is limited to 100 guests. So if you are not invited, I am genuinely sorry. I already cut and cut and cut the list to those I had to invite to 150 -and thankfully, it looks as if we will actually be the 100 I was hoping that night.

For those uninvited, the house will be open Saturday, May 1 from 3pm. Come and take a view, have a chat, and meet loads of friendly people. I fear, there will be more that the studio will hold, but hopefully the weather god will be open minded and we have plenty of space outdoors too for some great laughs and chats.

As you may easily imagine, my time there will be quite limited. However, there will be time slots for sessions with my staff, and few with me - at hefty rates :-)

From May, I will do some shows with AC/DC, Rammstein, Bon Jovi, so I will be on the road most of the time. On May 25th, one of you may serve as my Assistant for one day at AC/DCs show in Hannover, Germany. If you care to get this job, log into http://www.guidokarp.com/workshops/en/acdc.php for the English application (or http://www.guidokarp.com/workshops/de/acdc.php for the equivalent in German). There are no costs. And again: you may work as my assistant, so if you think that makes you the photographer for the show, dream on ;-)

In the end of May, I will be on the great photo festival in Zingst. Check out yourself, this is going to be awesome. There are loads of further news for the forthcoming events - an exhibition, Photokina 2010, my workshops, .... but I'd say I delivered plenty for the day, and leave some for the coming days. Thanks for your patience, I will be back soon. Promise!

Guido Karp photo shoot with AC/DC - London Aug 2008

2009-11-06T22:47:00.000-08:00

Here the full video of my session with AC/DC last year. Enjoy. Please do me a favour: please do not copy it and release it on any other websites. I've been in trouble before because of this. Thanks, Guido

Yes, I am alive...

2009-11-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

Good evening - at least to those where it is already evening. I think I just passed the longest time off my blog since I started it, sorry for that. Many best wishes from sunny Marbella in Southern Spain, where I have locked myself away for almost five weeks in the infamous Clinica Buchinger since last Friday. Having been on the height of my weight career - 125kgs (little over 275lbs) I decided it was more than time to cut it - dramatically.

So I have not had any food since a week, and am already down quite a bit to 116,4kgs (256lbs) - with over three more weeks to come. So let's see where we are getting.

Since I do this and share the results - much to my shame - more frequently on my Twitter and Facebook-Accounts, most asked questions were (a) how can you survive with just water (b) why do you do this to yourself and (c) why Marbella, a city I am feared to believe the youngest visitor now.

Since I knew this was going to be a long one and thus impossible to twit or facebook, here the answers::

Fastening has proved to be easier and more efficient way for me. I am pretty bad with diets, am way to inconsequent for diets. I can cut down calories so I will not gain, but find it difficult for a long period, and I was eventually always on the bad side - it did not work. Then again, I am sort of fine keeping my weight within a kilo or so. So here I am, trying to lose weight. As much as I can. That aside, fasting is possibly the most cleaning therapy you can give your body. After having lost a lot of water held in the body, the body is eating its own fat - that's exactly what animals do in their winter sleep. So now I am not exactly in my winter sleep, but am really taking a time off. Relax, free my mind, enjoy the beautiful weather and the massage therapies I get.

As some of you may remember, I tried to do this by myself in our LA home last summer - and failed. The seductions were simply to grand, knowing there were these marvelous t-bone-steaks in the market next door, and of course, knowing my beloved diet coke just steps away. In the past, worst parts was the loss of caffeine when dieting - no diet coke. Since I dramatically cut back from diet coke in the summer, it was not so bad this time.

Practicing a rigid diet as public as I do, I knew I was to expect all sorts of wanted and more unwanted advices how to do things best, and until now I was just to polite to ask everyone to p*** off. I guess everyone has to make his own experiences and to decide what's best for her or him when dieting. This is how I do it, and it works wonderful for me. The best advice I would love to take is to simply enjoy the time here - relax, let go ... and dream into the day. I wish I could, but I am in a position of my career where some many things have changed.

The music industry has changed quite a bit in the past ten years (which was, by the way, more or less exactly the first time I did this here in Marbella!). Now everyone keeps moaning - but haven't all business' changed? I remember the slogan "home taping kills music" being asked by some with "and home fucking kills prostitution", and so right they were. I mean cars killed the business of horse carriages, airplanes the huge sea trips. And remember the good fat phone book you got once a year (and being outdated 20% on the day if it's release ;-) - internet killed it.

So yes, as much as we love the www, it did severely harm my business too. Record companies aga former good clients have less money, small to medium sized artists (size in reference to album and ticket sales) have less money - and the massive accessibility of free concert photography on the web did sure its harm to the FansUNITED business, too. Then again, the marketing Princess for one day does would have been impossible without the web, and even marketing tickets for my workshops would have been a challenge, too. No blogging and twittering and facebooking and myspacing off the dates for any shows, whatsoever.

Some people say that portals like Facebook et al are the end of email, and to a certain extent I can follow this. It is so charming to have no spam and communicate with a certain group of people, ... love it. But who knows what tomorrow will bring? If only people would (1) remain to respect other peoples property - and not steal my images ;-) -and (2) if business people could resist the portals who spread same words over all portals. Worst scenario I experienced: Person twits and twit goes straight to Plaxo, Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace - the list is long. Plaxo et al show twit - and report back to Twitter, Facebook - and the same story gets being posted again and again and again. I must admit, I have not found the right balance between all these accounts myself, but I am trying. I am even thinking to employ someone in Russia or so to help me spreading my informations to the world out there - so if you happen to live in a country where the money I can afford to pay for a job like this and Internet is your thing, send me an email :-)

So you see, I spent my days here to do more than fast. Hang out, think a lot, and - unfortunately work more than I should. Then, why (c) Marbella? First and more importantly, the hospital I am in is beautiful and offers right what I need. It keeps me away from the seductions.

Of course I miss my dear wife, her kid, our dog, the cat (I felt it inappropriate to say our cat - she is not ours, I fear we are hers) - mum and dad - friends - all whom I left behind when leaving last Friday, but I did not want anyone around me. Of course I met some nice people at the hospital, but I haven't even asked for their name let alone offering mine. I wanted to do this alone. No plans. No "what are we doing tonight". Care for a nap? Great. Any time? Same for read, work, whatever.

Today is the first day I have really left the hospital, and that because I thought the hospitals bus was going to beautiful Puerto Banus at 4:45pm, so I could buy some batteries for my voice recorder and the current issue of the German mag Stern. It didn't. Tomorrow. I = Idiot. So I left, nevertheless, walked the 30mins down to the beach, and followed it during a most beautiful sunset all the way to one of the world's most beautiful hotels, the Marbella Club, which is where am now, writing this posting, enjoying at least a cold (in the hospital, everything is room temperature) mineral water at a mere EUR 4,75 a pop - a bargain ;-) - with a kind "no, thanks" to the nuts offered with the water.

Left at 4:45, and now it's almost 7:00pm, sun's gone - and posting's finished. The next thing I will try is improve the blog by adding the dates that are going to come, workshops, tours - you see, I'll try to keep you posted. So thank you for reading this long one. And as a little reward - go my facebook site and check this out. If you have not seen it already, I can assure you, this is a real super talent. So enjoy the hopefully sunny and relaxed weekend. I promise it will not be another two weeks until I blog again. Cheers, Guido

06:00am, last day in New York

2009-10-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

Wow. It's been a week since Nicole and I landed here, and there are thousand stories to tell. We arrived Tuesday with our dear friend and Sunbounce founder Peter Geller, who by chance happend to be at the same flight as we were. As I did not know then what I do know now, we accepted his invitation for an early dinner at Red Lobsters just round the corner from our Hotel on 42nd St.

Just now, before I started to write this blog, I was visiting my usual morning place ;-) and read the current issue of W - featuring a spread about Peter's son Robert, who is hitting it big time here as a fashion designer (most currently voted "New US fashion designer of the year"). Congrats on this, and I can assure you, Peter's such a proud dad.

But what made me green with envy was that I read that Peter's wife and the kids had a session with Andy Warhol. I find this GROSSLY UNFAIR PETER. So.

Wednesday Nicole and I went for lunch with ex-James Rizzis agent John Szoke, who became a dear friend over the years. Having lunch at Zoe's in Soho became sort of a tradition whenever we are in NYC, and then to the Javits Convention Center to meet Tim Mantoani, who was shooting Peter and Mark Selinger (and few others) that day on his 20x24" polaroid. After that we were invited for Jim Marshall's grand opening at the famous Morrison Hotel Gallery. Having been up since 4am or so in the morning, we went to the hotel for a quick nap - and woke up at 3am... :-( So sorry Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and all the others who went, you missed a real opportuntity to meet us :-)

Thursday was the first day of the Photo Plus show - US most important photo show, somewhat similar to the Photokina, but much much smaller - actually, the whole show is one grand exhibtion hall. Honestly, I love it! You can see the entire show on one day, and not having the feeling to have to rush in order not to miss anything. And the amount of talent there is amazing. I met Jim McHugh, Douglas Kirkland, Rolando Gomez - and of course Greg Gorman, Tim Mantoani and David Mecey and many more - not to forget the wonderful Lobster Pasta I had with Bert Stern, who just turned 80 earlier this month, at his favourite restaurant Bice for lunch.

I purchased two HUGE prints of "Marylin Monroe - the last sitting" many years back, possibly the biggest prints he ever made (the one you see here is in the entrace hall of my German home) - and we stayed in lose contact over the years.

Back to the Javits, the rest of my day was filled with one meeting after the other: Canon, Lacie, Graphistudio - and the grand reception of the Lexar Elite Photographers. I did not know that there are only 30 photographers in this worldwide programme - and I am one of them :-)

Friday I went to see our buddy Greg Linn, head of marketing with Columbia Records (we worked on AC/DC's Black Ice together), and then to the presentation of the new Michael Jackson album. I am very proud that one of my images was selected for the front cover - the one with him and Jennifer Batton.

Then back to the Javits, more meetings - and finally the grand party of Bron Imaging. I had never worked with their para - and I must say, this is an amazing piece. Also, their generators hold up to 50 flashes a second, so they would stand for the frequency I shoot on Princess for one day. I am seriously considering getting one - and use it on the next tour.

Saturday was the last day of the show. We started off meeting Tim Mantoani in my hotel room, as I had printed 100 digigraphies for ProfiFoto to be given away (this mag is starting to sell this week, and I can only URGE you to get one soon, and subscribe for this sensational print, as its value is $500!). After breakfast we once again went to the Javits, only to meet David Mecey to sign his share of the limited edition he did for FotoHITS. You see, I carried a lot of paper with me :-) I wish I could post the images I took with my IXUS, which is, apart from my Cyber-shot phone, the only camera I took, but I forgot my card reader :-(

When doing business, not everything can run as smoothly as one would wish things to be. For my LA workshops in April I was seeking to communicate with Hensel USA's Marc Gottula - and did not receive any response to any of my mails. When meeting him, he could barely look at me - and now I know why: He used to be the distributor for Sunbounce in the US - and with this falling apart, not only Peter Geller but also me as his friend sort of got blacklisted. What a kindergarten.... Bron US's president Michael grabbed the opportunity of that sour relation and so, who knows, maybe Bron will supply us for the workshop events.

In the afternoon met Calvin Hollywood and his buddies, who were in town for a very facinating project, and also my ex-assistant René Bially (who is now working for Martin Schoeller) - we all shared some beers at the Hilton, and then off for an early and quick dinner with Ulrich Goetze, formerly Olympus, now vice president marketing for Sunbounce and Sun-Sniper, once again at Red Lobster's around the corner from the hotel.

Sunday Nicole and I enjoyed a REAL day off. Great breakfast at the hotel, and as we were just to leave, we as Hilton Gold VIPS were invited to pre-visit their soon to be opened new hotel on 57th street. Since we wanted to go this direction anyway, we gladly accepted - just to learn that Blain (or so) was completely bullshitting us. There is no new Hilton on 5th street, they tried to talk us into buying a time share. Not only that I find it totally unacceptable how they coned us into this situation, I find it very upsetting how little respect these people show when they realize that we will not sign "the deal is only on the table today" or "no, you can not think until tomorrow" their little deal, which - this needs to be said too - appeared only to be to their benefit. Mia, our sales rep, who was full of compliments about the beauty of my wife, her handbag, her glasses,... did not even bother to say goodbye when we left. Honestly, I can not understand that Hilton permits this treatment to their top customers. Coming back to the Hotel, this guy tried to con three more people into going - three who were fuming when I told them that there is no new hotel, but only a time share offer waiting for them (quote Mia "This is not a time share", you just buy a fraction of a property... yes, and a subscription of a magazine is not an "Abo", you just buy the regular delivery of this magazine ;-)

Yesterday, Monday, we strolled all the way down to Soho again, did some shopping - and eventually landed at Jim Marshall's exhibition at the Morrison Hotel Gallery, where he was happily signing the latest supply of his new book "Trust". Got one, insigned to Guido :-) The evening was spent with a dear buddy I had not seen in almost twenty years, Peter Valentine, keyboarder and later musical director for Peter Hofmann's tours. Time just flew buy, as today - and my wife is now up and running. There's a shower waiting for me now - and breakfast.

I hope you enjoyed this long one. We may have one more meeting this morning - Keith Richards manager Jane Rose, then we'll eventually be heading back to Germany with the 4:20 Lufthansa, to arrive at - ouch! - 05.20am in Frankfurt. Two more than busy days in the office, then off to Marbella for my water-only diet. Sure I will find the time to get back to you from there.

Good morning everyone - I wish you a sunny week!

2009-10-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

Here an issue I stumbled across this morning on Facebook:

It sort of frustrates me when people are totalling missing the point: here's the video of a beautiful young woman, who had modelled for Ralph Lauren for 8 yrs. Then RL released a ridiculously photoshopped image as a one time ad in a japanese department store. They understood their fault, and issued an apology on their web site. However, some lawyer smelled $$$ and went after RL. In result, they no longer hire her. Of course not. Now she tells she "thinks" they fired her because she was to fat. It's nowhere in the papers, no one has said that. She has not gained weight since she started with RL. Where is the fucking story? The whole issue has absolutely no substance. No one hires a model who sues the client. She will now learn that no one will hire again. I feel sorry for her and believe she was grossly misrepresented and misguided by her lawyer.

Can't believe....

2009-10-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a week. One would think that having been in the office with only one session I would have easily found some spare minutes, but the opposite is the case. My time in the office is packed from early to late. There are always too many things to be done, and I always wonder when it's already dark outside and time to leave.

The week has been an exciting one. I received notice that Bon Jovi's first very own book is out. I guess there have been some official ones before, but this is the first one which comes directly from the band - and has some of my photos in there. Unfortunately, I did not do the front cover. I've only seen the facebook ad you see left so far, and the front cover is awesome - congrats to whoever did this.

I like looking at other peoples images, especially when they are as nice as the one on the cover. For those of you from abroad, there is a community called "fotocommunity" here in Germany, and years ago I had to take care I was not loosing myself by fotocommunity-ing day and night. When discussing images, I always try to criticize as charming as somewhat possible, but unfortunately, some people can not cope with any kind of "not positive feedback". I just had one, who really got exaggerated about my postings - guess that's how life is. Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose.

Monday started off really cool. I had a meeting with the editor in chief of the local newspaper, the Rhein-Zeitung, who were actually the first ever to print one of my images, which was taken with my pocket camera when I was a kid. Can't find it now, otherwise I would have shown it :-)

So that went well, and all other meetings Monday too.

Was supposed to have a lecture workshop about how to protect my most valuable asset (aside my family) - my images. Unfortunately, we had to re-schedule it to Dec 16. Still a good day, as I learned that one of my images is being used on the front cover for Michael Jackson's This is it :-) Spent the evening dining out with my best friend Bernie - we had sushi.

Wednesday was cool too. Got a lot of things done, and had a great meeting with my bank. Have two new people taking care of me - nice :-) The meeting went so well, we totally forgot the time, and it went well past hours, which was a bit of a shame as my buddies from the German pop band Münchener Freiheit played a show in Koblenz - and I missed it.

Thursday started off not so nice. One of my interns left. He was actually to stay for three years, but he left. I learned my lesson - I guess, he too. Tried to upload my LA video to YouTube - and it got declined. I had to prove via Warner Brothers legal department I actually have permission to use Avril Lavigne's long time songwriter (and now even boyfriend!) Evan Taubenfeld's song there. I find this cool, as it shows that people are getting more and more respect for other peoples properties. Here's again the video - from YouTube:

Friday was a blast. We had a guy from Nik Software here showing us some really cool things you can do with their software. Afterwards I had a session with a new set of Coyote Ugly girls in the Coyote Ugly saloon in Koblenz, owned by a long-time buddy Oliver, who used to work for the Backstreet Boys and Britney former agent. We sort of co-used the opportunity to cooperate with LowePro, who really made a perfect bag for me. In return, for the hand-made bags, they made a competition on their blog so one could win being my "assistant for one day". Florian won with a real cool image - check yourself! That aside, Florian was a real cool dude! Dominik filmed the whole thing, so sooner or later you'll be able to see what we did.

Saturday I had a true day off. Tooled around in the web, doing some facebook and stuff - check me out in Deutsch or in English on my fan site there. From 11am I was at my favourite home town brasserie, the Bellheimer until the late afternoon. Then I took my wife and Fabienne, her ten year old daugther from her previous marriage, to the Lukasmarkt, the areas biggest annual carnival in Mayen, Germany (which is where I was born).

Met my dad and his wife - my step mother, so to say. When I was a kid, I always dreamed going there with an unlimited, and that's what we did :-)

So finally: Sunday. Got up early as usual, and my appearance in one of Germany's most succesful kids TV show, the Tigerentenclub aired today. If you missed it and can receive German television, it will re-air as follows:

24.10.2009 – 09.15 (SWR Fernsehen)

24.10.2009 – 14.55 (KI.KA)

25.10.2009 – 06.00 (rbb)

Spend the afternoon on the relaunch of some web activites, and am now off to watch Formula One from Barzil. Enjoy the rest of the evening. More later, this week from New York City. Outside the office, I should be able to post more exciting things....

You gotta love this one

2009-10-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

Save the dates

2009-10-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

Greetings from my German office. I am just about to leave to meet with some of my colleagues from "The Leading Photographers Of the World" in Frankfurt, and we will meet some money people too :-)

Seems as if we finally get things going. We try to keep heads low for the time being, but I will sure keep you posted when things are kicking off.

That aside, here are some dates that may be interesting for you:

Oct 13: Calumet Workshop Düsseldorf

Oct 18: TV Tigerentenclub

Dec 14: An Open Round Discussion with photographers "how to perfectly pack your gear" in Hamburg. More details to follow soon.

March 27: The Bogen Imaging Model Night. This is just to save the date. More information is following soon, too.

Gotta run, more tomorrow. Best, Guido

It is a very special day

2009-10-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

my team and I send our heartfelt birthday wishes to the God of lighting, Peter Geller of Sunbounce, who is celebrating his birthday today! Love, Guido

Good morning

2009-10-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

and greetings from the Maritim Hotel in Stuttgart. I am here to film two segments for the famous German state TV show "Tigerentenclub" - a kids programme. Also I just learned by mail that the segment for the Landesschau, filmed all Sunday in our studio, will either air today or tomorrow on channel 3 ("dritte Programme") in Germany.

Legal Rights Workshop @ Calumet

2009-10-04T22:09:00.000-07:00

Next week Tuesday I will hold a lecture workshop about the legal experiences of my job. How do you secure your images, how do you track them, and what do you do if you realize someone took advantage of your work.

The admission is EUR 79 - and you receive more information from

Calumet Düsseldorf: Axel Findler

Workshop.Duesseldorf@calumetphoto.de

Tel: 0211 - 93 88 46 10

The lecture will start at 10:30 and will, including a hopefully fruitful discussion, run into the late afternoon. To avoid any misunderstanding: the lecture will be in German.

It's been an exhausting weekend

2009-10-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

Back home, answering mails. No more princesses for a little while. I honestly enjoy these shows. We get some much love from the people when they get their photos. However, yesterday we were at my German studio for the final day - and simply underestimated that the studio was not designed for (a) so many people and (b) an vast amout of kids, hammering my grand piano and chasing dog and guitars.... So no more kids - and no more Princess for one day events in my studio, which is an easy promise as the lease expires in March I believe and I do not want to extend it anyway.

That aside, we have an awesome weekend. I was shooting two friends Friday night and Sunday morning, here a raw file - straight from the camera (well almost, I resized it to 800pix and put in the credit line):

The sessions were great fun - but then again it is time to move on to new adventures. Today we will be busy bringing structure into the massive amount of data we created during the past four weeks on the road. Our web guy Dominik will "fly in" from Cologe with the Schneckenbus and will make sure he has some new images for the relaunch of www.p41d.com which is scheduled for this week.

Time flies

2009-10-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

It is amazing: time flies. I've been in my studio all day yesterday, shooting some nudes with my dear friend Janine yesterday. However, all equipment was still in the truck from the tour, and the studio was a mess. Thankfully, my two assistants Anne and Thea have already been there the day before and thoroughly cleaned it, but still there we so many things to do.

When I was just taking a moment to relax, my landlord popped it. Unfortunately, we seem not to speak the same language, so we will look for a new place soon, as I refuse to renew the lease there. The place is OK, but the guys are ... well.

Am just about to run for a shower and then off for another day in the studio. Our model Heike will arrive at Neuwied train station by 09:30, and then we're off to shoot and film "Princess for one day - The Nudes". From 4pm we will have a full scale Nudes workshop, and tomorrow is the final day of our small tour, testing kids and such, thankfully.

Gosh, I am late. Gotta run. More later.

Haven't blogged in a week

2009-09-29T02:43:00.001-07:00

started to write - but was always disturbed. The Princess for one day tour is now over, with two remaining dates in my German studio this weekend. Once again we do nudes (Saturday) and .... the rest (Sunday). Thanksfully this will be my final "You and your kids" workshop on Sunday. I like kids. I really do. But when I started dreaming of Aurel and Chiara I realized, no more Aurelchens and Chiaras - please! So now the tour is over, back to my RNR kids :-)

This one from HIM was done outside their manager's house in the Hollywood Hills, next to where I lived from 2001-2006.

All that aside, my latest technical gadet

2009-09-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in Hamburg

2009-09-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

Claudia at our new cover girl workshop

Berlin, here we come

2009-09-21T22:37:00.000-07:00

Left Hamburg just after 22 hrs for Berlin, managed to confuse 5+ members of the Burger King staff by ordering food for the six of us in the van, then off to Berlin. Driving: me first, then Nicole, then our fearless stylist Christine from Austria. It had to happen: Master-Stylist Holger said she will hijack us into the woods - and the Autobahn was blocked. We had to leave - and the navigation system continuously tried to lead us back. Where are the good old days we had a map?

We eventually got back to the hotel and hour later as we thought we would :-( Unfortunately, we could only secure the very nice show facilities at the Hilton, but not enough rooms. I tend to stay with the crew, so we are all at the Estrel now, which is a bit off - but: there was a bed, and I slept well.

Now I am getting set for: A HAIRCUT.

We will have two TV teams joining us today at our Princess for one day adventure, so Sophie will make sure I look my best :-)

Hotel East in Hamburg

2009-09-21T04:02:00.000-07:00

Greets from one of the most stylish hotels we have been to with Princess for one day. The picture above shows our styling area. But not only that we find the rooms that accommodate us perfectly well, we found a hotel partner who fully understands that the 120 ladies we have participating each and every day are potential customers for their food, beverage and lodging services.

And so they are not just paying attendees, but receive a full princess treatment with cappuccino and lattes on the house :-) I just signed the deal for our 2010 shows here.

www.east-hamburg.de

The Cyber-shot Nudes

2009-09-19T22:17:00.000-07:00

Greets from the beautiful Mövenpick Hotel in Hamburg, where we are ready to face another sold out Princess for one day. Just updated my profile images on most of my networks, and while looking for the image I stumbled accross these images I took a little while ago - actually during the rehearsals of the Genesis "Turn it on ... again" Tour in Belgium. They were all taken with my mobile photo - and have not been retouched at all. For the purpose of display here and in other outlets, they have been resized to 800pix and my credit line was added. That's it.

The project was great fun. It was quite an experience being reduced to a wide angle lense, one lamp, one back drop - and the while box. Deliberately I avoided all accessories - I wanted to see how far I would get with just a phone. I would have never thought this would end up being a europe wide exhibition and a book.

Where are my chips?

2009-09-19T09:45:00.001-07:00

The manager's ellbow

2009-09-18T22:04:00.001-07:00

Traveling with equipment

2009-09-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

As I reported earlier this week, I have a new monitor. To make sure "it does not get hurt", this is the way we pack such cherished things when traveling:

There is a lot of brainwork how we travel with our equipment. I will write an email to my friend Thomas Gerwers, editor in chief for profifoto.de, maybe we should get together with you guys out there and discuss the ultimate way to pack our gear properly.

I like the smell of diesel in the morning....

2009-09-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

is what I read on some roadies T-Shirt the other day. Well, it does not smell like diesel in my kitchen at 5am in the morning, but as you may have already realized, I am sort of an early bird lately. Then again, I went to bed at five in the afternoon yesterday evening, after a heartbreaking funeral service of my wife's grandmother yesterday.

Just checked my messages of facebook, and that's what I found posted by a dear friend.

With more than sixty million views sure a piece the one or other has seen already, but nevertheless worth recommending again. Writing this makes me curious to check out what happened to our "united breaks guitar" hero Dave Carroll - he "stalls" at five million fews, with video part two "staying way behind" with just under 400.000 views. I mean: 400.000 views! Most dream of such numbers. However, I find it amazing that even the 60million plus of the video above did not create any chart influence to this or my other favourite

The Mean Kitty song - 25m views - or with up to 100m views (depending which video post you look at)

Achmet, the dead terrorist - this one is my favourite, having him singing christmas carrols. by the way a quick message to my German friends out there: es gibt eine Version mit deutschen Untertiteln, sehr empfehlenswert). So this were my golden words to a hopefully sunny (at least by heart!) weekend. We will be en route towards Hamburg for another set of Princess for one day workshops soon.

In Dusseldorf....

2009-09-16T23:18:00.001-07:00

Good morning, and greetings from the Renaissance in Dusseldorf. Have yet to meet a nasty hotel manager ;-) so the young day is still a nice day. As most of you know, we were invited to use the Epson facilities for my three day workshop on the last weekend in August, and I was thrilled to work with their Eizo 24".

Went to Calumet yesterday, got one - and will present it to the boys tomorrow morning. Looks very much as if we will leave our old ones behind - rest in peace ;-)

In all honesty, there is rarely a nicer thing than a hardware calibrated monitor that works in sync with your printer. Ok, re-thinking there actually ARE few nicer things than a hardware calibrated system :-)

The famous five minutes of the day - go to MR KLÜPFEL!

2009-09-16T00:46:00.001-07:00

For the past days, my staff and I stayed at the Mercure Wings in Raunheim, close to Frankfurt. Basically living in hotels, I am a bit of a nerd. We all work hard and long hours, and I believe that booking the staff and myself in nice hotels adds to the overall mood of the tour, which is very important when traveling for a long time together.

Sorry Mercure - but normally they are not the standard we are looking for. However, I had a meeting with Joey DeMaio from Manowar - in this Mercure. Knowing Joey for years and sharing our nerd vision of hotels ;-) - I was surprised he picked not only this particular hotel but even took inconveniences in travel to be able to stay there.

The hotel is ok - just what you would expect from a Mercure, but the staff is unbelievable. No wish to absurd, even taking new dishes on the menu to accommodate the band and management.

So when Frankfurt was re-scheduled due to my what was said to be Burn Out, the office booked this hotel on my particular wish. We arrived late on Sunday from the Princess show in Cologne, and were both exhausted and hungry. Assuming we would end up with the odd chocolate bar and chips from the mini bar, they went extremes, re-opened the kitchen and served the most wonderful Wiener Schnitzels. The parking was a bit odd - as our truck and the nine seaters did not fit in the garage. No way to far - one of the receptionist found slots for us to park - everyone was so friendly - simply amazing, so our all thanks go back to this wonderful staff there - this is truly awesome one would normally only find on exceptional five+ star hotels.

Unfortunately, Mr Klüpfel - the hotel manager - stands out by far. Just after I paid a couple of grand for the nights we stayed and enjoyed a quick breakfast with our staff, he showed up - and barked about the chaos we created with our parking. Again, we parked exactly as directed. he did not even introduce himself. It was so embarrassing, having him bark at me and the entire staff. I was so shocked. Normally I am pretty good in responding, but I was speachless. I can not recall when some one dared to speak to me like this. Today I learned, he did not only bark at me - but also to the guys from the rental company.

Sorry Mr Knüpfel, maybe you should get some manners. Maybe I can teach you what my mother already told me when I could hardly walk: if you approach people, be kind, apologize nicely if you disturb them while eating, then introduce yourself - and express your wished. You will learn: you will be heard. By telling me a liar and making obscure statements about cars we did not even drive - just because we happened to rent from a company loads of other business people rent from too - made you look like an idiot. Worse: you lost the business. A shame really.

2009-09-16T00:25:00.001-07:00

Short break from the princess tour - and some meetings in the office. Then off for a meeting with EIZO this afternoon - and more with ProfiFoto, my CPA and the Nature One team tomorrow.

"Sie und Ihre Kids"...

2009-09-15T07:52:00.000-07:00

is the theme of a line we test on the current princess tour on the special request of so many many princesses we served over the years. While one has to be sixteen to participate in "Princess for one day", now our former princesses can bring their kids, dad - and even the dog.

I just finished the current one, and am a wreck. I think I go for a walk. In the rain. Cheers, Guido

2009-09-15T01:49:00.001-07:00

I like the idea of ping.fm - but will my followers like to see the same information on all my outlets? Maybe one day one should built the best out of twitter, facebook, blog and flickr ;-)

2009-09-14T09:37:00.001-07:00

All set for another cover girl workshop :-)

Yes, we bounce :-)

2009-09-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

Princess - technically.

2009-09-14T01:12:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been receiving quite some mails from my photo buddies what we are doing on this tour. Princess for one day is a photo beauty event, and if you would strip it down - a before/ after show, but on a very high level.

We are touring with a staff of 23, 12 stylists, two truckers, project manager, my staff and myself. For the styling, we have six custom built styling desks that perfectly suit the stylists needs with lights, mirrors - check out youtube.com for Princess for one day and see yourself.

As far as it comes to my photographic equipment, there is loads too. I mostly shoot with the Canon EOS 1D MIII. The ten million pixels are fine - and I'd rather have the speed than the 21m pixels. I use 4 and 8GB ProSpec CF cards - they have proved most reliable for our heavy usage. When doing portraits, I try avoid zooms, I mostly use the 85, 100 or 135mm, all high speed Canons. Wherever I can, I try to avoid flash lights. Still we do carry four Hensel 500 compact heads, 100x100 soft boxes, honeycones and the sensational beauty dish with us.

The "classic" portrait series we do is mostly done with 4300K panel lights I bought from Calumet. We actually use loads of them, up to ten, giving me a massive light box, softened up by a hugh Sunbounce sun scrim. I correct the skin tones by using a Sunbounce Pro (zebra) reflektor from below. Using this method, I do not have to flash, which is very convenient for the customer - especially since we, for the first time, are shooting kids - small kids - on this test tour. Also, the constant lights make me very fast, allows me catching just the right moment.

Also, we are testing a new line - cover girl - on this tour. Here I do use the Hensel flash heads - on full power. Panel lights would be to soft for the strong colourful styles we do. I have been tooling around with quite a variety of lights - and am extremly happy with the Hensel heads and their beauty dish.

Once shot, we edit the material with Adobe's Lightroom, and then, of course, use CS4 for color corrections and retouching on our Apples. We have been using Quato monitors for the last year or so, which have been really really great when we started off. Unfortunately, they wore off - possibly they are not designed for traveling each and every day, even though we tried to protect them as much as somewhat possible with custom inlays in our Rimowa cases - and, of course, did never leave them in the truck overnight in low temperatures. We have been testing the new Eizos (24") on this tour - and they are absolutely awesome.... :-)

Finally, we print on Epsons' semi matte professional and Hahnemühle Fine Art paper, using the sensational Epson Pro 4880.

That's the technical side. I will post more images shortly.

Princess for one day on tour

2009-09-13T01:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple of days since we embarked onto a new Princess for one day adventure. After few days of production rehearsals in my German studio we had a fantastic kick off in Koblenz - basically my home turf. This is where I spent most of my childhood and all my school days - before moving to Bendorf and later Hoehr-Grenzhausen in the early 90s.

Koblenz was a day added later to the tour, as the German high end design furniture company Contur Moebel approached the Princess administration office in search for an attractive consumer event to commemorate their 30th birthday, so it was sort of a test for us there. I like working in such outlets, as the rooms and lightings give us so much more atmosphere, which you can eventually see in the images. Even though we've build some nice relations which the hotels we work with, we are still "people renting rooms", whereas for instant the team around Mr Caser at Möbel Bernd were all really excited to have us (and this particularly includes our "princesses") there.

My wife Nicole, the dog and I immediately left after the show, heading for Düsseldorf, where I attended the ZDF TV show "Volle Kanne" mentioned before. Nicole stayed with the crew to start the first workshop at 10:30 at the Dusseldorf Hilton, while I took "Princess" (our dog - so many princesses can be confusing at times) to join me at the show.

The two Dusseldorf days were a blast. We have tested new fields, shooting couples, babies, and our new line Cover Girl (see our cover girl Sabine above :-), which is quite an challenge for both stylists and my photo team. Today we are on Cologne and are looking forward to another sold out day. Unfortunately, our stylist Nadine has high fever, so we had to leave her at the hotel - hopefully the other eleven stylists will be able to take over.

The first of five three-hour-workshops is starting in four minutes, so more later.

fotocommunity, flickr, view....

2009-09-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

As many of you sure are aware, I am an active member of some "photo communities". I like to see what others do, and being a very communicative person, I also like to share my thoughts now and then.

Other than in the past, I have been sort of "unproductive" uploading my own images. I completely fail to understand why some people have to communicate on such a personal level, often referring to my status within the photographic scene.

I fear they tend to oversee that the photographic aspect is only one part why one is successful. As in every other business, it is the summary of benefits that builds a business. "Professional Courtesy" seems to be totally unknown. It appears that people are ignorant to the fact that photography is about emotion. Some people like it, others don't. I can perfectly well live with the act that there may be millions of people who see photography different than I do, and are totally open to any well founded critic.

Let's say some one would write a statement like "sorry, that's nothing for me. The way I like photography is...." and would have supporting material in her/ his portfolio, I would totally consent. But unfortunately, there is always this emotional and in the case itself totally useless issue like "I know all the Karp fans will hate me but this is crap". So where's the point?

It does not piss me off. That would be far too much. But a model's statement like "I am missing the sparkle in the eyes" while providing totally unsparkling material herself... I do not get it.

Before I forget

2009-09-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

There will be quite some TV appearances in German television in the more recent future. Today, the SWR will be filming, tomorrow morning I will be live as a talk guest for the full ninety minutes on Germany state television, ZDF - Volle Kanne. 09:05-10:30. Thankfully, the studio is just moments away from the Hilton, where we will be starting at 10:30 with the first workshop of our two day sell-out at the Hilton Dusseldorf.

I will try and keep you updated here, on twitter and facebook when these will air. I've been to Volle Kanne two or three times before - and it is always great fun. I particularly like it that they are not so cheesy and we really have time to talk.

Princess for one day - here we come

2009-09-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not blogging for a few days, things have been a little crazy here. The team for the forthcoming Princess for one day adventure got together Monday for "rehearsals". I guess we have to train the stylists how to use their colors and stuff just as much as they have to tell me how to use my camera, but still we need to see how to streamline processes and make sure we're all running into the same direction.

This time on tour, we will - on the special request of the long time customers - shoot families, men (!), couples, and - cover girl. This is is a new Princess-line for those ladies, who always wanted a VERY special look/ photo. So besides the "classic" Princess for one day look, we have a small range of workshops, where our stylists really show what they do - and this not on models, but on "people like you and me". I think we can really say "Everyone's a Top Model!". Here's to that with few samples:

And finally here the image how our stylist Britta handles the red lipstick ;-)

As you see, we had great fun for the last days, and will run into another full day of beautiful photography in my German studio today. In the evening, all gear will be packed in a 7,5t truck and the whole 23 head entourage will get on their way.

We'll head off very close, in Koblenz, in a large furniture design outlet - Möbel Bernd. If it was for me, I'd rather skip the 5star hotels we usually reside in and shoot all the way through in furniture outlets. the 5star bit always sounds fancier than it is - but less than that hardly cover the technical requirements we have to the hotels in size and rooms. Still, most of the rooms we use are - conference rooms. Four walls, sometimes with more, often with very, well let's say technical atmosphere. The furniture stores however provide this most beautifully set rooms, which some carefully designed lights I love to use in the background. Then again, to be fair to the hotels, these are not designed to hold conferences in. Still they are big, and provide enough room for us - equipment, staff, and of course our participants.

From Koblenz, the tour will commence through Dusseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich and finally Neuwied, which is where I have my German studio - until Oct 4. We were really sorry we had to skip the eastern Germany cities as well as Bremen, Hamburg and other cities we enjoyed visiting in the past due to the limited days we could have the staff. So stay tuned, I sure will be back with more soon.

By the way: even though we are sold out in most cities, we always have last minute cancellations from people who have booked, but are unfortunately not be able to attend. Feel free to check www.princess-for-one-day.com for available tickets.

Your Look

2009-09-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

Here the video to our workshop today. This was filmed as a promo tool for Your Look - and is, my German friends here will love this, in German. Today and tomorrow we have the final training workshop in my German studio. I thank yourlook for the excellent business, I really enjoyed working from them and their franchisees.

Geez, it's almost been a week....

2009-09-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

and what a week. Tuesday I had a celebrity shoot. Madeleine Niesche, one of the lead characters for the Koblenz theatre works as key visual for the Goldschmiede Hofacker for many years now.

It is always great fun to work with her.

My part is not the "jewelry issue" but to show lifestyle images, who a person "wears" the designs by Birgit Hofacker. Apart from this session, I spent some of my few days in FansUNITEDs headquarter office in Germany, introducing our new team member Dominik, who takes over the redesign of www.princess-for-one-day.com and will possibly do some more video footage next week.

Today was my last office day for quite a while. I'll spent the weekend in my German studio. Unfortunately, I am - carefully said - not too happy with my landlords, so we'll most likely be out there sooner than later. Back to the weekend: I bet this will be a nice one. I'll have some photographers from YourLook, a German franchise company for portrait studios. Was great fun last time, so why not this time.

From Monday we'll be in hot rehearsals for the Princess-for-one-day Tour, which will take me all the way through to October. But that's a long way to go, and I will sure get you some more before then.

Take That, Beautiful World Tour. Tourstart Odysee Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland 2007

2009-08-31T07:05:00.000-07:00

One of my favourites, Take That opening their tour in the Odysee Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland - performing "Reach out" from their multi-platinum release "Beautiful World". Until this very show, I did not care to much about the song, afterwards I used it as a ring tone for quite a while.

I post this particular image, as I just hold it. Take That's designers have just requested the high res file for the use in a forthcoming book release from and about Take That.

The image is one of the band's favourites. When approving the images, Mark, Gary, Jason and Howard asked to use this as the "free photo" when licensing it back to FansUNITED (who hold the exclusive licensing rights to sell Take That's concert photos to fans. By returning the response element from a leaflet given out at the concerts with return postage, fan could receive a free concert photo brochure, and said image was thrown in as a goodie to compensate for the postage. The image series is still online on www.fansunited.com).

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II
Canon 24mm, 2.8
f 2.8, 1/100 sec, 800 ASA

This image was also uploaded to flickr, fotocommunity.de, fotocommunity.com and view.stern.de.

Isn't that nice?

2009-08-30T05:07:00.001-07:00

Karsten's photo in fotocommunity

Meet the professionals Workshop

2009-08-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

Am still in Meerbusch on the third day of our professional workshop. We really enjoy our time here, and it is unbelievable how many options we have here, indoor and outdoor. We could have easily spent a week, and make advantage of the water basins putting some girls in....

Though I have advertised as a portrait/ nude workshop and secured that at least one of the three models we had per day was offering being photographed nude. However, I was very thrilled to see that my participants cared more about photography than ... tits.

Friday and Saturday were filled with a mix of theoretic lectures and actual sessions. In my professional workshops, each group of max. four photographers share one model and I personally see to it that only one photographer shoots one model at a time ;-) Since most of the workshop attendees are used to work alone, I make it an important point how much better the results are when working in a team. Wherever possible, I tried to take the participants to assist the shooting photographer, keeping them off fiddling with their own cameras but learning to see the shooting photographers image from the assistants angle - and learn how to direct light and model, when shooting. After dinner, the nights were spent editing the images, and now, courtesy to Epson, we are all using the finest fully calibrated equipment for final color corrections - and print large format shots of the best they have to offer and a variety of printers and papers. It is amazing, how different the results are - and see, which image works best on which paper.

Finally, my heartfelt thanks to Julia, Tanja, Ljuba. Swetlana and Angi, our models, our stylist Stephanie - and of course, Anne and Anne, Thea, Konstantin and Christian - my team.

By the way, my latest newsletter #29 is being mailed off as I write this (German version).

Tim Mantoani

2009-08-27T05:50:00.001-07:00

the final image has arrived. The original is a 20x24" polaroid and will be shown at the Photo Days in New York this fall, and hopefully on the Photokina next year too :-9

Traveling advice when going far....

2009-08-24T15:38:00.001-07:00

Many times I get asked how I get over the jet lag when traveling abroad. Last time, I left LA on Thursday evening, arrived into Frankfurt by late afternoon, got a shower in the Lufthansa Lounge (which they offer to passengers who fly from USA now!) - and went straight to the long night job at the Nature One. Simply stayed on LA time - and headed more or less straight back after the job.

This time, of course, it will be different. I need to adjust, as I stay for quite a while. So the advise I tend to give is see that you get some sleep on the plane, stay up at least until 22:00 (aka 10:00pm) with later = better, then go to bed and take a sleeping pill. I am not very fond of taking pills at all, but this keeps you asleep until the morning, and as most of you don't do this on a regular basis, you should be fine.

That's the theoretical part, which worked even without taking pills very well, when I was younger. Nowadays, my wife and I got the rental at the airport, went to see my parent-in-law who were kind enough to take care of our little dog, and that's where I fell asleep for the first time (two hours). Then home, unload the car (seven suitcases, why do I always have to buy these great photo books in the US?) with the help of my staff :-) - then shower, and in bed for another two hourse.

Got sort of a rescue from sleeping through until 10pm and then be fast awake: had the parents-in-law invited for dinner. So another shower getting me mostly awake, dinner at Pino's here in Höhr-Grenzhausen, the shopped as the fridge was empty, straight back to bed, and here I am at just after midnight, blogging and answering mails :-)

You see, there are many smart ways: this time I did just go along with it. When tired, back to bed.

fc/ flickr/ view.stern.de - and why not here: Désirée

2009-08-23T06:13:00.000-07:00

Carbonite

2009-08-23T04:55:00.000-07:00

If you care to read my blog regularly, thank you for this. You may recall we discussed the issue of an external backup. Currently, I use time machine, which I find a great tool. Then, some one suggested Carbonite, which would safe me taking an external disk on tour, and would also increase security if my luggage got lost or stolen, not only my computer but my mobile backup would be gone as well.

I checked it out in the 15 day trial they offer and was left under the impression that an incremental backup was being made whenever I was online - actually a neat idea to have this happening in hotels while I sleep. Now, my trial is coming to an end, and a message pops up every day to remind me, so I checked out (a) how it would work to continue using Carbonite and (b) how I can stop the stupip pop up. This is the result:

Needless to say: no backup - and still popping reminders. So consequently, this must be a very thumbs down for Carbonite, sorry, pals.

My progress as a cook

2009-08-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

Had David Mecey, Greg Waterman and Michael Hejtmanek at our place for dinner yesterday. Building quite an expertise on T-Bone-Steaks and corn on the cob by now, I added lobster tail yesterday :-)

I really really enjoy this chilli evenings here.

And, of course, Sparta - the Mean Kitty Song

2009-08-22T06:29:00.000-07:00

My two favourite Music Videos - Jizz in my pants

2009-08-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

Finally a good laugh for the weekend.

2009-08-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

A blonde, wanting to earn some extra money, decided to hire herself out as a "handy-woman" and started canvassing a nearby well-to-do neighborhood. She went to the front door of the first house, and asked the owner if he had any odd jobs for her to do. "Well, I guess I could somebody to paint my porch," he said. How much will you charge me?" The blonde quickly responded, "How about $50?" The man agreed and told her that the paint and everything she would need was in the garage. The man's wife, hearing the conversation, said to her husband, "Does she realize that our porch goes all the way around the house?" He responded, "That's a bit cynical, isn't it? The wife replied, "You're right. I guess I'm starting to believe all those dumb blonde jokes we've been getting by e-mail lately." A short time later, the blonde came to the door to collect her money. "You're finished already?" the husband asked. "Yes," the blonde replied, "and I had paint left over, so I gave it two coats." Impressed, the man reached into his pocket for the $50.00 and handed it to her. "And by the way," the blonde added, "it's not a Porsche, it's a Lexus."

Workshop Locations LA 2010

2009-08-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks to David Mecey, who was joining us yesterday and who greatly deserves being wined and dined with steak & lobster tonight, we have found some more genuinely awesome locations for our workshop tour 2010. These sure will keep us busy for a day or two. The first one just served for a big fashion shoot in of of the most recent issues of the US Vogue, and I am sure many of you Star Trek fans will immediately recognize those rocks. What appears as a building tornado is actually sand being pushed on this dried out lake.

So for for the pleasant part. My studio manager Wayne already hates us. It will take him weeks, getting permits to all this places for us thirty (16 photographers, 4 models, 4 stylists, 4 assistants, possible US office staff and myself) to shoot there. The - let's call it Vogue location - is privately owned, so we even can shoot some nudes there.

Again: these images reflect the location for one, possibly one and a half day of the seven day workshop.

Workshop Tour Los Angeles April 2010

2009-08-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

So LA is again in the lead with 35 against 34 Ibiza. If these votes are serious, I may end up doing both! Los Angeles is being scheduled for April, with Ibiza to follow up just before or over the weekend of May 1, 2010.

However, as we are leaving LA Sunday and will most likely not return this year, David Mecey and I will drive out to the desert to see if and what we will do there.

By now our plan is as follows:

Saturday:
leave Frankfurt or Duesseldorf, depending on the airline.
arrive in LA in the early afternoon
pick up through GKP team
transfer to Hotel, refresh
get together
chill out, dinner, explore LA

Sunday:
first shoot sunset at hotel. As you most likely will be jet lagged, getting up early will be easy - I promise. I altered the plan to the Ibiza situation: I will not spend an entire day shooting and having workshop attendees watch and learn, but do 90 minutes each day, so there will be more shooting days.
breakfast
additional shoot at the Marina until late afternoon
dinner
workshop: Posing tipps and tricks - how to

Monday:
breakfast
Possible fashion shoot for Rockstar Jeans at an airport, using an old airplane and the hangar (all day)
lunch on site

Tuesday:
breakfast
shoot on secluded area of world famous Zuma beach (Malibu) until sun goes down
dinner in Malibu

Wednesday:
breakfast
travel to desert
shoot in desert (all day)

Thursday:
breakfast
edit material in hotel
Mopla: 2009, Los Angeles celebrated the Month Of Photography in LA, which exhibitions and functions of world class photographers. I could not get a confirmation to whether this will be happening in 2010, but if so, we should definitely go there. If it is not happening, I see to it that we get some of the good guys together and have people like David, Jim McHugh, Jim Jordan look and comment the workshop participants material.
explore LA.

Friday:
breakfast
re-shoot all day
dinner

Saturday
breakfast
fly back to Germany. This is of course optional. So if any one wants to extend the stay by a day or two on own costs, feel free to do so.

Once we know how many people we have I will negotiate with AirBerlin or Lufthansa and attractive hotels. I assume LA will be definitely somewhere in the middle between EUR 2000-3000, including flight and accomodation. LA does not offer "all inclusive deals" with food and drinks, so this will be optional. Of course breakfast and snacks and soft drinks will be provided by us when traveling around.

You see, this is quite a package. I have attended quite some workshops myself, and I PERSONALLY take great pride to say we gave all we can give. We will accept 12-16 participants. For every four participants, there will be a van with an assistant driving it, a model and a stylist. This has proved to work exceptionally well on my Ibiza trip 2008.

We will also see to it to provide studio lights, reflectors and a range of cameras and lenses. As you see above, I did not plan to shoot in the studio. We could shoot in the studio everywhere in the world. However, only in LA we will be able to use the world famous California sun.

So if you want to be part of it, please let me know.

Mike Larson

2009-08-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

On our way back from San Francisco on the beautiful 101, we had a stop over at Mike Larson's place, one of the leading US wedding photographers. In German, the word "Hochzeitsfotograf" has always had a certain negative feel to it. However, Mike has taken the wedding photography to a most artistic level.

I have been a great fan of his work, so I grabbed the opportunity to meet him during his Workshop kindly promoted by Calumet and Peter Geller's Sunbounce in Düsseldorf earlier this year. Unfortunately, I could only stay for a little while, as my wife had an operation on her head scheduled that afternoon. However, the short time I was there, I learned so many new things, it was breathtaking.

So I made sure Mike and I stayed in touch, exchanging mails only now and then, and so we met yesterday - at a most special sandwich place in San Luis. I thought we would hang out for an hour or so, but again time flew way to fast, so we had to rush back in LA as we promised to attend the new presentation of the 621hpw Bentley (not that I think of buying one ;-).

I possibly could spent hours here - but the better idea is see to it that Mike can join me on the Photokina - and we'll do something really big there.

Hate or date

2009-08-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

Check out this one, "Chuck" is our long time friend PJ - whom I mention now and then here on this blog. I LOVE IT!

Hate or Date | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

Well, uuuuhm, we now learned about United breaking guitars and Hiltons being ignorant....

2009-08-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

But I guess this guy was REALLY unhappy with the Apple guys. Enjoy!

Alle guten Dinge sind drei - Sebastopol and Obispo

2009-08-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

is a famous German saying - and would possibly strange to the native English speaking ear sounds as strange: all good things are three. So here's the third update to my blog, being of a truly nice issue.

After leaving the Hilton SF ;-), we drove up North to Sebastopol to visit the design team of LowePro and Acme. As some of you may have seen at the Photokina and other occasions, I am a great fan of Rimowa. However, with airline restrictions getting worse my equipment getting more (whereever I can, I avoid zooms), we had to think of alternatives.

I was already using the Harnish system by LowePro since many years when running around at the gig (few years back, I even got a coke bottle holder for it for my birthday :-), so I shopped for the new toploader (Magnum). Some of you may have seen this photo and the story behind it already on fotocommunity.de.

The LowePro people saw it - and liked it, and even used it in an add. By the way: you may want to check out THIS LINK - and may even win a day with me in the studio :-). So as we grew to know and like each other more, they invited me to visit their design team, little more than an hour north of San Francisco I spent most of the day with Sharon, Kendra, Yvonne, Kevin and Pete to discuss some ideas how some of the products could be enhanced for my use - and sure of many others too. Before we left, we met former Apple-designer Lucky, how is designing the most beautiful messanger bags with Acme.

Writing this, I have a great idea: once I am back in Germany, I will invite whoever is interested for a discussion round and we will see what your input is to the ultimate way to securely transport your most valuable equipment. I will keep you posted here - and in German through my newsletter.

Enough for now. We will be leaving this wonderful motel on the 101 now, for the last hundred miles to meet US#1 wedding photographer Mike Larson in San Luis Obispo, two hundred miles north of LA. Peter Geller of Sunbounce and Calumet had Mike come over to Germany and I had the pleasure meeting him in Düsseldorf, Germany. I seen a lot, and thought I was well set up with marketing ideas, but gosh - this guy really has some things going. So whoever needs refreshing business and marketing ideas - his workshops are really worth traveling far. So let me get on the road for now, tomorrow I will tell you how it was.

Hilton - the sequel

2009-08-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

Having paid a hefty $108 for two nights parking, checking out with staff still refusing to log my Lufthansa and HHonors card numbers to my stay (I could not even get a bill with my full address, let alone a response to my mails to Hilton and Expedia, who were in charge of the booking), I did not believe things could get that much worse.

We got the car after a 15 min wait, put the luggage in (ourselves, no helping hand) and then drove off. Out of reasons totally unknown to me, the guys of the garage had opened the front hood - deliberately or just by mistake, and did not close it.

It was a very windy day, and after little unter a mile, there was so much wind, the hood opened in full force while driving and smashed against our windshield, severely damaging the car. Thankfully, nothing happened to Nicole and myself, but it took us quite a while until opur heart rates were back to normal.

Remember United breaking guitars?

2009-08-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

Well, here's the sequel. I have great sympathies with this guy. The video may sure not have the impact the first one had, but at least he does something, and this is a very nice way. My nightmare with Hilton continued in an even health threatening way. More in few moments in a seperate posting.

Where are Hiltons I used to love?

2009-08-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

Greets from San Francisco, where I will attend the FileMaker Developer Conference today. As most of you are aware, I really travel a lot, and when being asked "where do you live" one of my favorite lines was "in hotels", which was, on second thought, possibly the straightest answer.

Consequently, I have a high ranking with most chains loyalty programs, being Gold VIP at the Hiltons. However, the Hilton attitude gets somewhat bizarre lately. The more nights I stay - the LOWER my status gets. Yes, no kidding. After being downgraded to Silver Status - while I actually should have been upgraded to Diamond (their highest level) - we discovered "the mistake".

I receive recognition, when traveling alone, or at the max with a reservation of two rooms. Whenever I traveled and took the entire Princess for one day staff - where bills can, other than the usual $250-500 - add up easily to as much as $5000 - I do not qualify, because out of a sudden I become a group booking. I would understand, if such bookings were being made through a different agent, getting different rates, but that's not the case. In the group booking, I pay just as much as if I travel alone. So giving less business with Hilton will give me a higher status. I will never understand this.

Yesterday Nicole and I arrived at the Hilton on Kearny St in SF. We had to learn a new rule: if not booked through Hilton but through the travel agent (which is of course much more convenient for us, as they take care of flights and stuff), we do not receive recognition of my status AT ALL.

Having checked back with Bryan Osakin, not shy of repeatedly confirming he is the Director of Front Office (so here's your famous five minutes, buddy ;-), the answer remains the same. Since I was not booked through Hilton.com, I will not receive any of the benefits I should receive as a Gold VIP (which would, for example, include complimentary breakfast).

Having written that and sitting here on the 25th floor with a true spectacular view over the financial district of SF, I spot a little brochure on my desk: "Everyone's idea of the perfect breakfast is different!" How true.

I learned my lesson. With Hilton, loyalty does not pay off. To avoid disappointment in the future, I am possibly better off spending my bucks elsewhere, including the $47 I pay here per night - for the parking of my rental. That is, plus tax, of course.

My session with Tim Mantoani

2009-08-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

was a blast. I know I am repeating myself here, for those of you possibly new to this blog. Tim is an advertisement photographer out of San Diego, CA. Since 2006, is working on an exhibition series "Photographer Portraits", where he shoots mostly famous photographers - or better: photographers who have a famous ("iconic") image.

Tim knew my Sting shot and had liked it, so I was invited to be among the last to be photographed. Since Tim is shooting on 20x24" polaroid - a material no longer being made - the series will come to an end soon. Besides taking the image, the photographers are writing their personal story in the frame of the print. There are some truly remarkable stories there. If I recall this correctly, there is this guy traveling with Ted Kennedy, walking in front of him and photographing, when this guys shows up with a gun and fires off some bullets - into Ted Kennedy - and the photographer. Being hit I believe SIX TIMES, he still manages to step over the dying Ted Kennedy and take three more shots before fading out (the photographer survived). Unbeliveable.

So yesterday it was my turn - with my image of Sting from 1991. Already the first as a true hit. Out of whatever reason, the polaroid took the color and light effects from the Sting shot in the corners. Miracle? Mistake? I do not care - the result is awesome.

I will sure see to it that this exhibition will be seen in Europe soon, it is a true blast. Here some footage image. Tim will send me a digital file of the shot anytime soon, and then I will show it here in full force.

After the session, we had a nice lunch with my old friend Suzanne Suva from the United States Postal Service. She had just moved to San Diego - and we haven't seen in quite a while. It was so nice to catch up.

HIM photo shoot in the Hollywood hills.

2009-08-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

Today is my big day. I have been really looking forward to this, being photographed by Tim Mantoani. Nicole and I have been to his exhibition last week again in Santa Barbara, and the series in total is a real blast. I must get him into the Photokina and the European gallery world.

Been up since 5am, running through yesterday's shoot, some awesome shots. However, it was already clear yesterday: this will be the cover: ;-) Spot Ville in the left glass, me in the right one.

And: the orange came like this from the tree (that is, without the cigarette and the glasses of course), which immediately inspired us to some strange thoughts to what it looks like. The mouth was only one idea, but Migè was unsure to wether he could express his idea in the presence of my wife ;-)

The final question is: how does Seppo water his plants to make an orange look like this? I leave you with this important question alone, wishing you all a fantastic weekend. We're now off to San Diego, and then onwards to San Franciso for the Filemaker Developer Conference (yes, I am aware that both are in opposite directions :-(

David Mecey Shoot in the California desert.

2009-08-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like the California sun. As Los Angeles is still in the lead as to your favourite workshop location, with Ibiza following up, chances are we do both. Above you see this weeks shoot of my buddy David Mecey with the Austrialian Top Model Kat. David and I will be on the road next week Thursday to spot all the locations I will offer, and we are talking that Kat may also be part of the workshops. She's really nice - I bet my guys will love her.

If time permits, David may even join in for few hours. He's been with Playboy for 23 years and every day even a veteran like me learns new things. Check out davidmecey.com for his awesome portfolio, it's really worth it.

2007 Workshop Tour Diary

2009-08-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

Checked out some old folders on my hard drive today, and found my diary of the 2007 workshop tour (in German). So if any of you readers care to get it, please email to contact(at)guidokarp.com, and I'll gladly mail it to you.

Gone for the day - photo shoot with HIM

2009-08-13T08:11:00.001-07:00

A good pizza

2009-08-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

is almost as hard to find as some crispy bread. I will never understand how a chain like California Pizza Kitchen can survive - and even go public. Sure, their locations are in nice areas and both design of restaurant and menue is very nice. But then: the pizza tastes like cardboard - aaaghhhhh.

Nicole and I tried one slice of eight each - no thanks. The waiter even asked if we want to take it.

Yesterday we were in Larchmont Village Pizza in Hancock park - on bite, and you will forget the flithy bathroom and immediately understand why people stand in line for half an hour to get one of the few seats to share on a table with others.

Guys, who ever is coming to the LA workshop: you'll love this place.

http://iamairborne.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/3.jpg

2009-08-12T21:30:00.001-07:00

http://iamairborne.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/3.jpg

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And, of course, a new lawyer joke

2009-08-12T13:57:00.001-07:00

A guy walks into a post office one day to see a middle-aged, balding man standing at the counter methodically placing "Love" stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. He then takes out a perfume bottle and starts spraying scent all over them.

His curiosity getting the better of him, he goes up to the balding man and asks him what he is doing. The man says, "I'm sending out 1,000 Valentine cards signed, 'Guess who?'"

"But why?" asks the man.

"I'm a divorce lawyer," the man replies.

Elvis - and the truth behind a long kept misunderstanding.

2009-08-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

Do you know the "laughing version" of "Are you lonesome tonight" back from 1969? And didn't you think that it was the voice of the backing singer who made him laugh. Sure I did for the major part of my life. Well sorry, the truth is: we were wrong. The truth is: "Elvis made a habit of not sticking to the lyrics. Normally, Elvis should sing at a certain moment "Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there". In this particular version he sings "Do you gaze at your bald head and wish you had hair". The song continues for a couple of seconds and then Elvis spotted a man that is completely bald. Hence the laughter." Thanks ripegllrm for spreading the word.

How true...

2009-08-12T09:08:00.001-07:00

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

There is this person from Turkey...

2009-08-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

and I take her or him (I stay with "her" for the remainder of this posting) representing the many many people, who consider themselves fans of any artist, actor or whatsoever and spreading word and image on the web, on their little fansites, but, of course, also on facebook et al (way too many to mention).

Now, I see my images and those of friends being using on these portals. Mostly, I just post under one of the images "did you really ask and get permission to post this image here before you posted it here".

I am both shocked by the responses from these people, considering my question to be rude and an aggressive act. Maybe I should just send them a bill, understanding that they may not find it nice, but then at least .... :-)

I just love models...

2009-08-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

Laptop Security

2009-08-11T08:59:00.001-07:00

Just testing carbonite.com. For just over $50 - with a 15 day free trial period - they automatically backup the user data of your computer. I do use time machine, with a hard drive here in LA as well as one in Germany. When being on tour, I am sort of unforgiveably lazy.

So the question is: is carbonite.com the solution? And no, I am not getting paid for posting this. I just found it on the facebook comment of another friendly photographer - and do not know the guys.

By the way...

2009-08-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

I also updated fotocommunity.com and it's German counterpart, fotocommunity.de, stern.view.de and flickr.com- all with the image.

How much teeth do you need...

2009-08-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

was asked by this crazy little girl in the video I posted few days ago (here's the link to youtube, in case you missed it ;-) The sad reality now is how much teeth does every one of us photographer need, and they are the sharkey teeth of a good copyright lawyer.

I mean, I already mentioned here on the blog that I was somewhat shocked about the little "extras" come with posting your images on facebook & co. Most who do do not realized that they do waive their rights to their images, but - and this is really crazy - waive the rights of any third party too. So say I posted an image of Mick Jagger, I automatically not only permit most of the portals - and that's regardless if it is facebook or myspace or whatsoever - to use this image at no charge, they may also fully exploit their syndication rights. So Jagger may end up being used in a dating portal. Assume he may not like this and sue. Then I (yes, I) would be fully liable for any costs, punitive damages, legal costs... So beware what you do, and make sure you read the fine print.

What a crazy world.

But, then you can stand "on the other side". I posted images on the great German photo portal fotocommunity.de (which comes, by the way, as an international version as .com also). Some architect bureau - never heard of them before - "took" them for a visualisation. What was possibly meant to stay within their neat little powerpoint was liked a lot, they go the job - and forgot about their "taking". So things snowballed, when the customer used the visualisation in their fund-raising brochure, which then again was given out by some fine PR agency in form of promo CDs. Then again the visualisation was printed in some event magazine - and hey! the image landed on my desk.

So I tracked back from the magazine (very helpful) to the pr agency (promising, but never helping) to the customer (upset) and the architect, who as of today has to respond and send an apology.

I have to be very precise here: the images were used in 2x3cms - so sized as stamps. However, one should "take" my work. The painful part is: German copyright laws do rarely cover the photographers here. One would get a small fee - almost as if rights were properly obtained from the photographer.

The US law is very different. I must stress out that I do not entire agree with these law suits, where people get hundreds of thousands because they spilled some coffee on their laps. Then again, sorry pals, I have to correct myself, after reading the case Liebeck vs. McDonald's on wikipedia: on the end of the day Liebeck was awarded $640,000 because McDonald's really failed on this one, selling coffee that was way hotter than it had to be, and, once discovering the real issue, failed to pay the medical bills to Liebeck).

Back to my "case" here in the US: thankfully, my work is recognized as art by the US copyright laws. Also, I went through the hassle of registering most of my images on copyright.gov. So the image was taken in the US, protected in the US, and since I live in the US, US laws applied here.

So I could sue the magazine, the pr agency, the client - and, of course, the architect. Such a case would be awarded easily with $200,000, plus legal fees, plus punitive damages. For those unfamiliar with the US legal system: if one does wrong, I mean deliberately wrong (that means: if you "take" something which is not yours, you should know that the law may consider this as "stealing"), then they should not only be held responsible for the damage (which is what happens in Germany or most civilized legal systems too), but they should also be punished.

As a little kid, you know, when you do things you should not do, you get some on your "popo" - or "no TV for a week". But how do you punish an architect, who - of course I checked out his background - goes badly after any person, who uses his plans for a house without his consent, when he "takes" someone elses photos, and that of course without asking. The answer is: money.

I am a great believer in being punished for wrong doing. I really am. I am quite a creative parker in Germany, knowing the fines are low. I will not park my car on handicaped, but that aside I will illegally park anywhere where I do not risk getting towed. Here, fines are really bad. I mean, really bad, starting at $75 for an expired meter (Park Uhr), or $500 for worse. The solution is: I park legally.

Getting back to my point: I eventually got the architect and his affiliates busted. They paid EUR 50,000 last week. Fair enough, I do believe they will not take photographs again without asking.

If you care to learn more, I just proposed to Calumet to take me out on a "how to protect images and enfore your rights" workshop tour. Maybe I'll see you there.

Tim Mantoani

2009-08-08T12:50:00.001-07:00

The day before yesterday, my wife and I have made the trip to Santa Barbara to attend the opening of Tim Mantoani's exhibition. We've already seen some of it at the Month Of Photography earlier this year, here in LA.

I took the liberty of making a screenshot of www.mantoani.com - a site that is really worth being checked out. Each and every image shown is a true blast and tells a story. The "guy" on the right hand picture photographed John F Kennedy after the assassination, a most scary story.

Friday I will be at Tim's studio, and he will take one of me - most likely one of the last sessions, as they are all done on 20x24" polaroid, a material no longer being produced, so....

I sure will let you know how it was. That aside, I will be back with the Photokina guys in September making sure this is being shown in Germany. It's an awsome exhibition, as I am very positive you will agree after checking out www.mantoani.com.

What more can I say...

2009-08-08T08:25:00.001-07:00

And one more, with the promise to be more serious tomorrow

2009-08-07T16:36:00.000-07:00

Two small boys, not yet old enough to be in school, were overheard talking at the zoo one day. "My name is Billy. What's yours?" asked the first boy. "Tommy," replied the second. "My Daddy's an accountant. What does your Daddy do for a living?" asked Billy. Tommy replied, "My Daddy's a lawyer." "Honest?" asked Billy. "No, just the regular kind," replied Tommy.

Another lawyer joke

2009-08-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

A Rabbi, a Monk, and a lawyer are riding down the road when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Spotting a farmhouse they walk over and tell the farmer they need a place to stay the night while they wait for a tow. "I've got room in the house for two of you but someones gonna have to sleep in the barn." says the farmer.

The Rabbi says, "I've no problem with that, I'll go." He leaves. Five minutes later theres a knock on the door. The farmer opens the door and the Rabbi is there. He says, "Sir, there is a pig in that barn. In my religion pigs are unclean, I cannot sleep under the same roof with a pig."

The Monk speaks up and says, "I have no problem with pigs - I'll go sleep in the barn." He leaves. Five minutes later theres a knock on the door. The farmer opens the door and the Monk is there. "Sir, there is a cow in that barn, in my religion cows are sacred, I cannot sleep under the same roof with a cow.

The lawyer responds, "I'll go sleep in the barn, I've got no religion." He leaves. Five minutes later theres a knock on the door. The farmer opens the door and the pig and the cow are standing there.

Back in LA...

2009-08-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

... and once again sitting by the pool, answering my mails and doing overseas calls. I wish I could share the air and the peaceful setting with all of you. The Nature One was once again awesome. Given that I was - next to the other 30000 men (of 60000+ that came and danced) - among the ten oldest men on the festival ground and that Techno is not excactly my music, I enjoyed it greatly. I wanted to upload some images, but they are on my external hard drive, which I sure have in my bag, but without the cable....

CUT: you would not believe how long it takes to write all this. The phone rings, emails pop in,... so back to the blog.

Did I mention that I enjoyed the Nature One ;-) So I arrived into Frankfurt with Fabienne (for those of you new here, Fabienne is my wife's ten year old from her last marrige) on Friday, my assistant Konstantin picked us up, shower, unpack the few things I brought, repacked and left with Kontantin and Christian - our new guy - to the Pydna Missile Base. Thanks to our car pass we had a very convenient access to the festival ground.

Friday we arrived around 7pm - and stayed all the way to sunset, which was - from a photographic standpoint - disappointing though. Then we drove back home - just under an hours drive - and we all went - at 6am German time for me almost perfect LA time (9pm)- straight to bed. Got up just after 3pm in the afternoon, again, my favourite "get out of the bed time in LA (6am) - rushed through the first images, posted one,... and then back to the Festival site. As I had the pleasure before, I left it to Konstantin to do the aerial shots from the helicopter provided by the Nature One Staff. This time, we left pretty exhausted around five. I am pretty tough when it comes to long hours, but shooting for 6-8 hours over two days... I can tell you.

Sunday I had two meetings in the afternoon, then sat in my favourite brasserie to go through the other images. Staying on LA time, I went to bed as the sun came out. Slept a short while, and then meeting the new members of my German staff, Thea and the two Annes, so now we are nine in the German office and studio.

After our meeting and finishing the Nature One images, I went straight to Frankfurt Airport - another meeting, Joey DeMaio from Manowar plus management team. We had an awesome night and the WINGS Hotel in Raunheim, suberb and utmost friendly staff who went extremes to cater all our needs. When being asked to where I live, I often refer to as "in hotels". Having said that, I greatly value if staff is really courteous. The Frankfurt Wings Hotel really was, and consequently deserve an extra hug - and if only through this blog.

After work we, next to wonderful food (a variety of meats, fish and scampi on a hot stone), some outstanding red wine donated from Joey's private collection we shared some serious laughs and lawyers jokes (what else ;-). Did you know how many lawyers jokes there are? None. They are all true :-)

Way after midnight I fell into the bed, still unable to sleep. So I finished of my Grisham and went to Frankfurt Airport. Enjoyed a small breakfast with long time dear friend Manuela, and then off with Lufthansa to LAX. Arrived on time, was one of the first out of the plane (who ever landed in LAX International will understand the importance of this) and got through immigration in an amazin 25 mins, just exactly to find my bag being delivered. Life can be good at times :-)

Enjoyed the rest of the day off - and another great episode of Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen :-)

Now, Wednesday, (remember I started to write this at 6am - it is just before high noon) so I'll pack my laptop away, grab my wife and enjoy the rest of the day at Malibu beach. Have a great night!

Upload of images straight from fotocommunity.de

2009-08-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

is a nightmare, unfortunately, compared to flickr. Will try others next. Adding the link is the best I could find. Facebook worked.

http://fc-foto.de/10162967